The ‘Fate of the Furious’ Cast Suggests the Next Movie May Revisit Han’s Death

While fans have mostly been enthusiastic about the expanded role of Jason Statham in The Fate of the Furious, there is one thing that has stuck in their collective craw. Statham’s character may have the movie’s best moments, but he never stops to address the elephant in the room: Shaw did kill Sung Kang’s Han, perhaps the most beloved character in the franchise and (we assumed) an unforgivable offense for a movie built on family. Will the filmmakers address this in a future installment of the Fast and the Furiousfilms? Or, perhaps more intriguing, could Sung Kang find his way back into the franchise?

To address this issue, The Los Angeles Times(via Heroic Hollywood) recently devoted an entire feature to the issue of #JusticeForHan and whether the latest installment in the movie violates the franchise’s core value of family first. The Times went all out in the piece, speaking with Vin Diesel, Statham, and series writer Chris Morgan — although, surprisingly, not actor Sung Kang — about the chance that some version of Han could appear in future movies.

Let’s start with Diesel. As the Los Angeles Times notes, Han was originally brought back to the franchise in Los Bandoleros, the short film that Diesel co-wrote and directed that explains how Toretto pulled together his crew for a heist in the Dominican Republic, despite already being canonically dead in the franchise at the time. When asked if Diesel could again pull a rabbit out of his hat to bring Han back, the actor was somewhat noncommittal. ““I have a lot of power,” Diesel said. “I don’t have all the power.”

For his part, Statham was never entirely sold on the idea that Deckard Shaw was a baddie at heart, explaining that the movies never showed exactly how involved he was with Han’s death:

And you know, that whole episode has not fully detailed exactly what happened. I’m not going to say anything more than that! But [writer-producer Chris Morgan] likes to annoy the fans and please the fans and get all these angry protests. So, more to come.

And what about Morgan? While the screenwriter does make it clear that Han is dead in the movies — “He did die,” Morgan told the Times — he doesn’t seem entirely sold on the idea that Han needs justice, which, well, read into that what you will:

Justice for Han … justice for Han. I think you’ll learn a lot more about it, and I don’t know if that hashtag will be the appropriate one to put on it down the road. But I can tell you this: We will definitely be talking more about Han.

Honestly, the whole Times piece is worth reading. Not only does the author include some very candid quotes from actress Michelle Rodriguez — who clearly thinks that the studio made a mistake in rolling Jason Statham’s character out like nothing had happened in previous movies — it also shares the insane fan theory of a Los Angeles programmer, who thinks that the Statham and Luke Evans connection has opened the door for a unique way to bring Han back. If it were me, I’d just steal a page from the playbook of Broken Lizard’s Beerfest and introduce his twin brother (also named Han) and then proceed like nothing ever happened. I mean, what are audiences going to do, not see it? Don’t be ridiculous.